A Tale of Two Ecumenisms?

Carl Trueman, professor of Church History at WTS, has been writing some important articles over at First Things.  Important, I say, because of his strong stance on Presbyterian Confessionalism.  Other Protestant authors, such as Peter Leithart (advocate of a sort of Reformed Catholicism), tend to respect the classical confessions (Westminster, Heidelberg, etc.) while connected more strongly to the Patristic and Medieval influences on the Reformation.  However, for many, that has opened the doors to seeing the priority of authority resting in broader Church history, not with the Reformed confessions; that is, many (some? I don't have statistics) have crossed the Tiber, the Thames, or the Bosporus due to the ecumenical outreach of modern Reformation thinkers.  Trueman, while appreciating the influence of Patristic and Medieval sources on Reformed thought, stays committed to the confessional authority and heritage that the post-Reformation scholastics bequeathed to Reformed communions.  My own sense of where this sort of dialogue is going leads me to believe that there will be a Reformed retrenchment against moderate and soft subscriptionism: the Confessions will, I think, in short order regain their authoritative standing in Reformed churches (my reservations about such a move can be found here).  This is no prophecy, however; I could be quite wrong.

Trueman's latest article goes further by calling attention to the work of "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" (ECT), a group I have some passing affinity with (the former president of the college I teach at was a member -- it made him into a "lame duck" president in the eyes of the Board).  Trueman contrasts, very helpfully, the sort of ecumenism at the root of ECT versus the sort of informal, conference- and book-based ecumenism that seems to hold in broader Evangelicalism.  Think how many conservative Reformed pastors extol Mark Driscoll (Charismatic) or John Piper (Baptist), for an example.  A very, very important issue is raised here, but it isn't the one I wish to focus on.  Rather, it is a rather surprising inconsistency in his reasoning about doctrine.  He says, "perhaps the biggest disappointment about ECT is the fact that, like stadium evangelicalism, it disconnects matters which should be connected." By itself, there is much to be said about this.  However, as the article unfolds, we see Dr. Trueman doing the very separation he castigates.  He applauds Catholic theologians for getting the doctrine of God right, but says that the modern evangelicals, even those who totally botch the Trinity, get the doctrines of authority and salvation right.  In fact, he "still do[es] not see any advance beyond the sixteenth century" in matters of ecclesial authority or justification.  However, while the early Reformed may have held orthodox views about God (the charge of Nestorianism might be able to be leveled at Calvin and can certainly be leveled against Vermigli and others), the moderns by-and-large do not, which means that a separation has taken place: soteriology and theology are at odds in modern evangelicalism.  The problem, though, is that this is untenable: one's doctrine of God is one's doctrine of salvation.

In John 17, the Lord Christ [or St John in an editorial aside] says, "This is eternal life: to know You, the One True God and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent."  Knowing, as it well known among biblical scholars, is a participatory act, not a merely rational one: to know is to be in union with the one known.  To know God, to have eternal life, is to be in union with Him (the Father) and Jesus Christ (the Son) -- the assumption, spelled out elsewhere in Scripture, is that this done through the Spirit.  Eternal life, then, is not merely a gift, separate from God.  Since He alone has immortality (1 Tim. 6:16), to have "eternal" life is to partake in the life of God Himself, the Life that John says is Jesus (John 1:4).  Salvation, then, is participation or union with the Trinity.  To have your doctrine (or "knowledge" if you will) of God wrong is to not have salvation.  One can understand all sorts of things about the so-called ordo salutis and the relationship of justification to that (although I think that Chris Tilling's critique of both Old and New Perspectives as not being sufficiently Trinitarian is indispensable here), but if we have not God, we have nothing but sounding brass.  The two cannot be separated because, in essence, they are the same thing.

While Dr. Trueman may not be guilty of the separation (he seems to hold a more Catholic understanding of God, yet with Reformed soteriology), modern evangelicalism is.  The question of why, then, orthodox Protestants and orthodox Catholics disagree on the mechanisms of salvation becomes salvifically pertinent.  Both cannot be right (it is possible, as my Orthodox friends would aver, that both are wrong).  However, if we understand salvation as union with God (or, to use the Patristic term, as theosis), the question of imputation vs impartation becomes insignificant.  "Righteousness" is not something outside of God, either as a "created" grace or as a legal decree: righteousness is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who pours out the love of God in our hearts (Rom. 5:5).  The Orthodox distinction between Essence and Energy is helpful here.  How does one "become" righteous?  By being united with Christ in His death (His historical energy, as it were).  This union is accomplished by the indwelling of the Spirit at ecclesial baptism -- St Paul's argument in Romans 5-6 -- all because of the faith of Christ in the Incarnation.  More needs to be said about this, of course, but at the very least it pushes us to see that we need a third ecumenism that surpasses both ECT and the new evangelical consensus.

Review of "The Bible Tells Me So"

Enns, Peter. The Bible Tells Me So (New York: HarperOne, 2014), 267pgs.

Enns, a professor at Eastern University, writes often on his blog about the mounting scholarly and popular problems inerrancy faces.  This book, The Bible Tells Me So, lays out his case in a popular idiom.  It ranges through his field (Old Testament/Hebrew Bible) through the New and into modern criticism.  His main point, it seems, is that Scripture cannot bear the weight inerrantism puts on it: a claim that is, in my opinion, becoming more and more undeniable every day. The implications of this, for the life of the evangelical church, are staggering, although they are mostly left as subtle or provocative hints throughout Enns' text.  He lays out no program of how to interpret the Bible post-inerrancy, but merely strives to show that the old paradigm has no proverbial clothes on.

The argument is fairly clear; however, you cannot beat something with nothing.  In the end, the Bible is left, not as a normative collection of books (a canon for faith and life), but as a set that "carries the thoughts and meditations of ancient pilgrims and, I believe, according to God's purpose, has guided, comforted, and informed Christians for as long as there have been Christians" (234). He argues, at various points throughout the text, that portions of the Scriptures were "left behind" by later authors, especially those parts in which God is presented as a tribal-warrior death with a "hair-trigger temper."  I was left wondering how that might play out exegetically: are we allowed to leave behind parts of Scripture today? I realize that this comes dangerously close to committing the slippery slope fallacy on my part, but recent moves by various parts of the church have accomplished this very thing.  It gets to the very thorny (whether you are an inerrantist or not) issue of how "cultural conditioning" works in the New Testament (especially).

One thing Enns focuses on is the way both Jesus and the Apostles interpreted the Old Testament. It is well known that they, and the Church Fathers, Scholastics, Mystics, and others up until the Reformation, used very strange (to us) methods to derive meaning for their day, in light of what Jesus did and, therefore, who He was.  In fact, Enns says he would give a student a bad grade (among other things) if they engaged in that sort of exegesis. Here is one of the main points that we should focus in on: Enns has, unwittingly?, cut out how Protestants do biblical study, but has not put anything else in its place.  The historical-critical method doesn't cut it, since the history does not conform to our modern understandings of what counts as historical accuracy (an argument I've made before); grammatical-historical suffers from the same fate; redemptive-historical as well, although this one might get a bit more of a pass as it tends to focus on the canonical narrative, yet it assumes the full historical validity in the Scriptures.  What else can there be? If we cannot make recourse to "objective" history, what can we do?  Or, if apostolic (read: ecclesial-liturgical) readings are appropriate and necessary to maintain the Scriptures as "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16-17), how do we engage them without making "the Bible mean whatever you feel like making it mean" (168)?

Enns never quite says.  He offers some suggestions of how we are to approach the Bible post-inerrancy (236-244), but they do not amount to a complete exegetical agenda (nor, to be fair, was this his intent, as this is a popular level book, but I have the feeling that many will walk away from their reading wondering how the Bible, especially the OT, is normative for life today).  What Enns is seeking to accomplish in this work is important: we must read the Scriptures, if we are to know the God who inspired them, as they are meant to be read. They cannot bear the weight that sola Scriptura inevitably places on them.  But what?  Enns confesses that "I continue to work all this out for myself" (236). Just as Deuteronomy ends with the Israelites outside the Promised Land, so does TBTMS.

Trying to think alongside Dr. Enns, here are some thoughts as we seek to move forward: the Lord, the Apostles, and the Fathers/Mothers of the Church are all agreed that the key to reading Scripture is not found within method, or scholarly acumen. The key, the skopos of St Athansius and the hypothesis of St Irenaeus, is Jesus Christ, accessible to us by His Holy Spirit through participation in the life of the Church.  In other words, the Bible is an ecclesial document that cannot be properly read outside of the Church worshipping and communing. Lex orandi, lex credendi. Only being indwelt by the Spirit, what St John calls in his first epistle "the anointing you received from Him" (2:20, 27), can equip us to read the Scriptures towards salvation: this Spirit is the down-payment of the Church (not of individual believers in a "soul competency" sort of way -- this would lead to confusion and chaos, as can be seen in the history of Protestantism generally). Of course, this leads us to the question that continues to irk me: where is the Spirit? Who (which tradition/communion) has Him?

This is, to me, the great question.  It is, at least, the most important question I've ever come across. Enns, I think, points us back to this question, even if he is not explicitly asking it.

Review: Early Christian Attitudes Towards Images

Steven Bigham, Early Christian Attitudes Towards Images (Rollinsford, NH: Orthodox Research Institute), 2004.

Dr. Steven Bigham has done the theological world a great service with his readable, concise, and well-argued little book. One does not have to go far on the internet, especially if one is associated with the "Reformed Catholicity" movement that sprang out of the defunct "Federal Vision" movement in the Reformed Christian world, to see back-and-forth on the question of early Christian (and therefore normative) attitudes and views towards the use of images liturgically. This seems to be because some (many?) who tred the Mercerburg-Moscow road end up crossing either the Tiber or the Bosphorus, both locations having well-developed iconographic traditions. Responses by the leading theologians of the movement (such as Peter Leithart or James Jordan) often include statements to the effect that early Christians were universally opposed to figurative art being used liturgically, as that would constitute idolatry. If that is what the early Christians believed, this would be a linchpin argument for Reformed scholars over against the Tradition of both Rome and the Orthodox. Bigham, however, puts the lie to this line of argumentation: every Reformed scholar should carefully consider this book and the argument presented.

Bigham's argument is simple enough: determine whether or not early (from AD 33-313) Christians were aniconic and iconophobic; that is, whether they had any images (whether liturgical or not) and, if not, was it because imagery was viewed as essentially idolatrous. He does this by examining two major parts of any iconoclastic argument: the "hostility theory" and a "rigorist" (a favorite word of Bigham's) interpretation of the 2nd Commandment.

The "hostility theory" states "that the early Christians had no images and were hostile to them because their religion forbade figurative art" (1). Most scholars, especially those from Protestant backgrounds (although Bigham notes various Roman Catholic scholars who also hold to this point), hold to some form or other of the "hostility theory." This raises the question: if the early Christians were uniformly and universally anti-image (aniconic), then how did the iconic tradition, codified in the 7th Ecumenical Council, get such a strong and enduring footing in the Church of Jesus Christ? The dominant theory, which one can see in much Reformed scholarship on Church history, is that the conservative clergy (who were more loyal to the Jewish aniconia that they inherited) bowed to popular pressure from the laity, which was unwilling to jettison their pagan ways upon entry into the Church. After time, especially after the linking of Church and Empire with the conversion of Constantine (and its aftereffects), the clergy joined the party and even came to defend and promote the use of liturgical images.

However, Bigham notes, "The strength or weakness of the modern form of the hostility theory, as well as of Byzantine iconoclasm itself, depends on whether an icon is distinguished from an idol, veneration from worship" (9). An icon is honored (or venerated) due to the role of those pictured in redemptive history (in which I include Church history, since Christ is still redeeming the world through His people); God alone is worshipped. Veneration is visual, worship is not (since God the Father is invisible); Christ is venerated and worshipped together, since He is theandros -- this, of course, is one of the more controversial claims of any iconodule, a lover of icons. If an icon is an idol, then the clergy-laity split not only is the only workable theory, but also one of the greatest tragedies of Church history. This raises the question of whether or not the holy Spirit is actually guiding Christ's Church into all truth. Bigham rejects this theory based on the close differentiation between an icon (to be honored because of who is pictured) and an idol (which claims to at least represent a god or God the Father). The early Christians (or, at least, the bishops and lay teachers: the run-of-the-mill lay Christian did not leave writings for us, but they did leave Church art) were implacably opposed to idolatry, which all parties (Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic) agree on. However, and this is the brunt of Bigham's work, they were not opposed to "non-idolatrous figurative art" (as Bigham normally describes it), even in the context of the Church's liturgy. He argues this by going through all relevant early Church sources, both written and non-written (painting, mosaic, sculpture), and determining the attitude towards art being presented. In each case, with the possible exception of one possibly inauthentic letter in Eusebius' corpus, the early Christians either are silent concerning non-idolatrous art or speak positively concerning it. Part of the problem, Bigham argues, is that "hostility theorists" come to the table with a set of errant presuppositions that color their reading of the evidence.

By the end of the book, it is obvious that non-idolatrous art was not a major concern of early Christian writers. Idolatrous art, of course, is and will continue to be till the establishment and conquest of Christendom. To argue that early Christians uniformly were aniconic or iconophobic is a misreading of the evidence based on faulty presuppositions. Where, though, do these faulty presuppositions come from? Bigham argues a falsely "rigorist" interpretation of the 2nd Commandment.

"You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them..." Thus speaks the 2nd Commandment, which seems to forbid any figurative art, not just idols ("or any likeness..."). However (and Bigham doesn't argue from the Masoretic or Septuagintal text grammatically here, which would only bolster his case), the Old Testament itself should give pause to any such "rigorist" interpretation: five chapters of Exodus later, God Himself commands golden cherubim ("in heaven above") to be crafted for His glory, cherubim to be woven on the tabernacle linens, a bronze serpent to be made for the healing of His rebellious people, and so on (25-32). For adherents to the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW), which many Reformed people are, this should give pause. The point of the 2nd Commandment isn't the forbidding of images, whether liturgical or not, but rather the forbidding of idols, that which is worshipped instead of God. God Himself, in the Old Testament at least, is not to be figured artistically, but (and this is the point of St. John of Damascus) since God has appeared in the flesh, giving His own icon (or image, as in, "He is the image of the invisible God" from Colossians 2 and elsewhere), we are now allowed to make liturgical use of it. Bigham does not get into what the proper liturgical use of non-idolatrous art is (a debate that I, at least, consider far from over, at least as far as Protestant-Orthodox dialogue goes), but does set the stage for fruitful dialogue. Early Christians did not have a problem with non-idolatrous figurative art, nor did they interpret the 2nd Commandment in a "rigorist" (RPW-like) way; rather, there are more questions and further research that needs to be done, especially on how such images should be "used" in a liturgical context.

Review of Pagan Christianity

The history of Christian doctrine and ecclesial practice has long been a passion of mine. There is something distinctly unsettling about the way and the why of our corporate actions. Too many doctrines that ignore or downplay passages of Scripture that don't seem to fit. Too many practices that seem well and good, but were added by the powerful to either protect the regular Joe Churchgoer (positively) or to keep the regular from becoming the powerful (negatively). The question that Viola and Barna explore in this small tome (with powerfully small-type footnotes) is "Are we doing Church 'by the book'?" Their answer: no. Unsettling? Yes. Completely convincing? No, but mostly because of internal faults, not faults of evidence.

At the start, Viola and Barna (and the main author seems to be Viola, with Barna there for his research clout--henceforth I'll refer to both of them as "Viola") set a polemic, rather than a neutral tone. A neutral tone would convey something more like an academic feel, which Viola makes clear is not his intention. Such a book would "be read by a few people" (xx). An academic writing style does not necessarily a dull book make, however. Viola often descends into quite harsh and inflated polemic, which is often contracted and softened in the "Delving Deeper" sections that end each chapter. However, rhetoric aside, the writing style betrays an underlying anti-intellectualism that pervades Viola's vision of the Church. He speaks often of how the institutional church of Protestantism depends so much on the intellectual sermon to build spirituality in its listeners--a practice that he and I would both agree has negatively affected the church. He also lambasts seminaries as being too academic (my experience with seminaries, interestingly enough, has tended towards the opposite direction)--opting for what he calls "Spirit-led, open-participatory meetings and non-hierarchical leadership" in the church: non-ordained, non-theologically trained leadership in the Church. I actually don't disagree with him, at least superficially, but I am concerned that a voice of studied reason within one of these meetings would be marginalized as not partaking enough of the "Spirit", where everyone brings a message, a psalm, and whatnot. While it seems that this was Paul's practice, as per the Corinthian correspondence, the first generation believers, even the Gentiles, had a greater grasp and understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures than most church members do today. I've heard highly educated people say some stupid things in church, but that doesn't mean theological education is a bad thing--it needs heavy reform. His system of apprenticeship (the "elders" teaching the youngin's of the congregation) would work as long as the "elders" were properly educated themselves--something he leaves up to the post of the "church-planter apostle" who gets trained by? The answer is unclear, but Viola presupposes some sort of "apostolic succession" (as all Christians do, whether they realize it or not), especially as he says that the ekklesia shouldn't follow the ways of the historical Church, but should follow its teachings (262). Here, though, is where the anti-intellectual bent of the book becomes positively schizophrenic. Viola, for all his historical research, has not combined the historical practice of the church with its historical beliefs. Would the Church have called synods, councils, creedal assemblies without the rise of the one-bishop rule, the college of bishops, and the institution of a clergy-laity system? Would our historical, creedal doctrines have taken the shape they did without the influence of the church-state marriage (both Arianism and Nicene orthodoxy were heavily politicized doctrines which gave the Caesar power of the decisions of the church--an outcome that was quickly regretted, but never alleviated by rethinking the doctrines outside of a pagan, Greco-Roman philosophical milieu)? Probably not. However, he says "the historic creeds can be helpful guideposts to keep a church on track when it comes to the essential teachings of the faith" (262). The problem is that with one goes the other: you cannot reject the teachings of ecclesial practice without calling into question the doctrines that gave rise to them. If one wants cake, one must eat it as well.

The Viola concept of worship also has some issues to be dealt with. Once again, the issue isn't necessarily evidence, but the way it is presented. Peppered throughout the book is that phrase already mentioned: "Spirit-led, open-participatory meetings and non-hierarchical leadership". The problem here is that Viola never really defines what that means. To figure it out, as footnote readers will quickly become weary and wary of, you must read some other book he has written. This tactic is less about saving space as it is about making money: to figure out how Church should really be, you must buy another book. To figure out God's "eternal purpose" other than "saving souls", you must buy another book. Not to mention that Viola never mentions any other books, by scholars perhaps?, that back up his view of the Church or God's eternal purpose. Only his own get highlighted. Of course, theology should never be dictated by the more learned, eh?

The "non-hierarchichal leadership" clause, repeated over and over again to provoke Pavlovian egalitarians to drool, is suspect. He speaks of "informal" elders and leadership, which is what I take his meaning behind "non-hierarchical" to mean, however any sort of leadership, no matter how fluid, is hierarchical. The family is made up of husband-wife-children hierarchy that is, yes, mutually submitting to one another (at least as Paul conceives it). Just because there is mutual submission does not take away that there is hierarchy. God-Jesus-Church also exhibits the same qualities ("God is the head of Christ; Christ is the head of the Church; etc"). Once again, just because Jesus submitted himself to die for the Church does not make an egalitarian situation: he is Lord Messiah, we are his ruling council (a meaning for ekklesia that Viola ignores). The problem he has, as readers of the book no doubt notice, is with a static leadership that creates passivity among the regular Joe Churchgoer (to borrow from the recent pagan presidential race). Fair enough, but the language used to describe what the Church should be needs to be precise and accurate. There is leadership in the people of God and it is hierarchical, just not rigidly so. The orthodox Jewish community, interestingly enough, gives some creedence to this view. The older members (dare we call them elders?) teach the younger members who will take their place in business, religious training, and social activity: it isn't rigid, even the rabbi has an outside job to support himself and he is always teaching other members of the community how to rightly exegete the Scripture and Talmudic tradition. Protestantism could learn a lot from this system, but hierarchy is still there. The question isn't hierarchy or no hierarchy, but which hierarchy?

So far, this has been a fairly negative review. However, I did appreciate the historical research and the clarifications that the book offered. If it were rewritten, it could be a major catalyst for change in the Christian world. However, as it stands, it is self-defeating and will only cause disappointment in the authors and in the lives of those who take up their style of polemic and ambiguous definitions.

Review of 300 (the movie)

There is fundamentally something wrong with the world. For whatever reason, humans have always believed--regardless of culture, religion, or location--that we are to be an active part of the solution. Whenever this marring evil is identified or personalized, something must be done and that something is always war.

In 300, the war is against slavery, tyranny, and ingloriousness. The Spartans believe that, at least to some degree, they hold this. They have perpetual peace because they train for perpetual war. The Persians represent hubris, barbarism, and the end of the Spartan way of life--they are the bringers of slavery and tyranny. So the leader of the Spartans, Leonidis, sets out with 300 of his best men to meet the massive Persian army in full combat, to rid Greece of evil and protect freedom.

The overtones to the current American situation in the Middle East, or looking back to the Soviet Union era, are obvious, even if they may not be intentional. You cannot tell a story about a people rising in violence against an enemy that threatens their very way of life in this age without hearing the subtle undercurrents about terrorism, 9/11, or another ruthless Asian regime. If the battle is not engaged, the only outcome will be loss of life, liberty, and property...or so it seems.

As others have said better than myself, war always leads to loss of liberty, no matter what side you are on. Governments never back down and get rid of "emergency measures," nor do they shrink the size of their armies and navies, nor does the propoganda machine ever stop. With victory comes insecurity; there is always some other convining not-like-us group that is waiting in the wings to take the position as king of the hill. Hence perpetual war for perpetual peace. The idea itself that violent conquest leads to peace is itself an old piece of propoganda that in the hands of the powerful becomes a call to honorable war, but in the hands of the powerless is known as crime, rebellion, or treason.

This is not to say, though, that negotiations always (or ever) work. There will always be madmen (and women) who will not listen to reason, or be empathetic, or what have you. There will always be those who have a never-ending thirst for blood. Or power. Or victory. Or security. These people cannot and will not be stopped by force of words alone. Whatever happens to be fundamentally wrong with the world, it is foolish to believe that it will listen to reason. Or that it will agree to your definition of reason to begin with.

In a broken, sinful, violent world, war is inescapable.

I have been a pacifist for a number of years now. I've been called illogical, a coward, looked at as "less than American," and generally ignored. That is because pacifism has been confused with cowardice and compromise. While I do not agree with many things that they said or did, I look to Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi and wonder what they would have thought (or what they did think!) of such an assessment. To be a pacifist does not mean the denial of war, but instead a different assessment of how victory is to be accomplished.

The Messiah was supposed to be a great military leader, like Joshua, or David, or Ehud, or... He was supposed to throw off the pagan yoke and crush, with the force of God Himself, all pretentions to Israel's place in God's plan--as Adam, as ruler of the beasts that the pagans had turned themselves into. The war was with the Caesars and once Rome, the embodiment of the Serpent, was torn down, then the sons of God would rule in wisdom, prosperity, and with peace. However, Jesus did not do this. It is not because he had a great love for the Romans--he considered having one of their coins idolatrous and an affront to the true God. It was not because he hated his countrymen--his tears were always to gather the people to himself and to God. It was because he saw that the war being fought (at that time) coldly was the wrong war.

While we were watching 300 I asked Bethany when she thought that the Persians soldiers would start defecting over to the Spartans. She responded that they were slaves. Exactly. A slave is forced to do what they do not because of love or loyalty, but because of compulsion. They do the will of the master, whoever that master might be. I thought that they would see the victories of the Spartans over the Persians (free men versus slaves) as a reason to defect, to become free, and to fight against their old masters. That did not happen in the movie, partly, I surmise, because slaves are given limited vision. They cannot see freedom by changing allegiances, but only freedom through the destruction of the other. This is the doctrine that they are fed by their masters and it is impossible to not believe it. Worse when one master pits two sets of slaves against each other.

The problem wasn't the Romans, just like it isn't the Iraqis, or the Iranians, or any other number of "incarnations of evil." The problem isn't the slaves, it is the masters. Whereas his comtemporaries saw the Romans as the great, gnashing, Danielic beast, Jesus saw them as pawns of that beast, the accuser, the evil one, the first serpent and last dragon, the one known in Hebrew as the satan. Yes, the Romans had to be defeated, but by changing loyalties, not bloodshed. The satan had to be crushed and his weapon is always violence and death. Jesus didn't deny the war, he denied the way it was to be fought and the terms that would be used.

Leonidis, instead, perpetuated the circle of violence. His attack on Persian would necessitate a counter-attack, which would provoke a counter-attack, and so on, until one (or both) groups were decimated to historical and cultural irrelevance. The war would go on in different guises until the whole world was at each others' throats. The battle was won, but the enemy was not disarmed.

Jesus, by submitting to death--to the fulness of God's curse and the full power of Caesar and satan--defeated it, because it had no legal claim on him. He triumped by taking the very weapons out of the hands of the enemy and parading them around as paltry, restoring them to the place of servants to his people instead. That is why martyrdom is honorable; because death is defeated in resurrection--both Jesus' in the past and his peoples' in the future.

So, the pacifist has a toolbox full of weapons at his disposal, but none are carnal or "of this world", instead we fight with the resurrection of Jesus and overcome by resisting to play evil's game. The only lasting victory, or sustainable peace, can be won this way: by overcoming evil with good.

Review of Fight Club

(Some spoilers, but it isn't like this is a new book)

Rarely, if ever, when someone reads about the Church in the Bible, do they go out and start churches where they are. Even more rarely if someone "explains" to them what Christianity is "all about". Even more rarely if they have any interaction with Christianity as it is. At least in the United States. I cannot speak for anywhere else.

When men read Fight Club, they start fight clubs. Lincoln, NE, not far from where I grew up, has made them illegal. Persecuted, or rather prosecuted, members for their "subversive activities". Tyler Durden, the "hero" of the story (as author Chuck Palahniuk calls him in the afterword), sets up these churches of masculine salvation and devotes the top members--the true believers--to (de)construct cultural salvation through self-destruction. Whether he meant to or not, the author describes the birth and life of a focussed religion, complete with converts, symbols, and rites, around nihilistic categories. And people, especially men, love it.

Men love it because we have no idea what it means to be a man. Are we tough and aggressive, tender and compassionate, effeminate and passive? This question shows up starkly in the unnamed main character, who cannot figure who he is. Is he his furniture? What others have told him? Even his name? When does a man become a man? Where is that cultural/social threshold that used to have the "trial of endurance", going off in the woods with only a knife to survive, that made one ready to join larger society, no longer the boy, but the responsible man? Now, all you have to do is hit 18 or 21 and you are all that is man. A legal adulthood has never made any boy a man--and we know it. Is it your "right" to drink? Or to vote? Or to smoke cigarettes? If we really think about it, all of these "rights" would never make someone a good citizen, or a good person, or a good man. Just like a marriage license doesn't really make a marriage, and certainly cannot make a marriage good. Or a driver's license doesn't really mean you can drive, and certainly not that you (or I) drive well. But, in the same vein of thought as Seth Godin, we tell ourselves lies that "make" it so for us. We believe that a diploma means we are educated; or our age means that we are an adult; or that our marriage means we are in love. Fight Club reminds men that status doesn't mean anything meaningful. Status changes; nothing is static (interesting how closely related "status" and "static" are). Berger, with his "social construction of reality," really is a nice backdrop to the book. When the myth is exploded or imploded, then the "sacred canopy" comes off, causing fear, alienation, and anarchy. The plot of FC is forcible removal of the sacred canopy, for the good of self and others. That is what it means to be a man--taking off all masks, all delusions, whether sacred or secular. By any and all means necessary and available. It is the changing of the ages, the Novum Ordo Seclorum, that needs to happen, and fast. Imminence is always a part in apocalyptic scenarios.

In the end, though, no one that Tyler Durden liberates becomes free. Including himself. They are tagged as "space monkeys" and "human refuse", part of the plan to make them lose everything so that they have everything, and they end up being just that--expendable and meaningless. Their identities don't get defined by "who they really are" or "who they want to be", but by what Tyler tells them to do and say and be. Their existence, their meaning, is tied up in his existence. When he "dies" at the end of the book, they lose their meaning. But since Tyler has set up a new sacred canopy for them, they don't even need him, since his body (the living narrator) and his memory can carry them on. All they need are his messianic promises to tell them to wait for his second coming out of the loony-bin. The whole point, though, is to not ever rise again from the ashes--to always be the dung heap of the world, God's middle, forgotten children; to be lost in the oneness of destructo-salvation. The old Buddhist dream of attaining Nirvana through the complete loss of individuality.

Apart from its self-conscious coopting of Buddhist and nihilistic elements, FC is a trenchent analysis of modern society. At one point, the phrase (the book is a collection of pithy one-liners at its heart) "Generations working to buy things that they don't need" clarifies what drives most of our modern economy. We make and sell shoddy things to people who don't need them. Apropos since we have commenced this year's Christmas shopping season. We do end up defining ourselves by what we have and what we don't have. Very few of us know what it means to be destitute or even in need. Tyler Durden promises to his disciples that they will know what rock-bottom is, because you have to hit rock-bottom before you can be reborn. He compares it to Jesus on the cross and the resurrection. You have to disown what owns you, but instead of selling all and giving it to the poor, you have to destroy it. Burn it to the ground.

Whether he wanted to or not, Chuck Palahniuk has issued a challenge to the Church. People get excited about finding their humanity by losing through fight clubs. They love the idea of throwing off the shackles of consumerism, modernism, and the anti-masculine culture of the West. They love the idea of fighting for something that gives deeper meaning than corporate America, than education that gives no reason for loyalty to school or to discipline, than families that shatter faster than they form, than churches who don't want to help people but want their checkbooks (and, to tell the truth, any church that passes a 'collection plate' or 'tithe' aroud looks greedy, whether it is or not). I love the idea of fighting something. There is something virile and deeply masculine about fighting, even if it isn't with fists. The Church, however, has not been about fighting--except to whine about how it is losing influence, or dollars, or people to 'the world' (defined Marcionly as whatever the leadership of the church happens to not like at the time). If the dream that is Tyler Durden was ever carried it, it would be an unimaginable nightmare. However, the dream that the Church has played out has been almost as bad: inquisitions, heresy hunts, crusades, the European Reformation wars, and the list could go on. The dream, that of world-wide influence and power through Christendom, has got to be rethought.

Once the Church has a clear, accessible, masculine-affirming story to tell, then we will see men building churches after reading the Bible. And it won't be a moment too soon.

The Name of the Rose

Way back when (meaning a couple of posts ago), I asked you, the faithful reader, to suggest what fiction book I should read. Since I have wanted to read The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco for a long time, it was the easy winner. What a beautiful and frustrating book. Beautiful in that, even though it is a translation from the Italian original, its prose is crisp and every word is full of meaning and import for the story. No surprise considering the author is a professor of semiotics, the study of symbols and signs. The plot of the book revolves around a series of strange, almost apocalyptic, murders at a 14th century Northern Italian Benedictine monastery. The story takes seven days (reminiscent of the seven trumpets, bowls, etc. of Revelation), all broken down according to Benedictine time (matins, compline, etc.). The narrator, Adso of Melk, is a novice monk assigned to William of Baskerville (a Franciscan monk). They travel to the unnamed monastery on the Emperor's business: to facilitate a meeting between the Franciscans (who claim that Christ was, of necessity, poor and the church should follow him in this) and the Papal legations (all about the Benjamins), which is really a cover reason to debate how much temporal power the church should have. In the midst of this is the murders, the inquisitions, the Song of Songs peasant girl love, and debates as to whether the world has any order. While the book can be slow at points, it keeps the reader riveted with its discourses about the meaning of the arts (especially comedy and laughter), love (carnal and spiritual), and meaning in a breaking-down world.

The frustrating part about the book is the postmodern bent at the end, when William denies any meaning to the universe except what man gives it. There is, in the end (as Adso so insightfully points out), no God to give meaning since to say there is an order in the universe limits God's absolute sovereignty (at this point, Dooyeweerdians and VanTillians should cringe, but the book is written in the middle ages when the Philosopher reigned supreme). Even the book, such a wonderful chronicle, ends with a depressing "I don't know why I'm even writing this." It does, however, bring up the question that every humanistic philosophy must deal with: if man is not transcendent, how can he apply lasting meaning to any part of reality? Eco, himself not a Christian (as far as I can tell), answers it by correctly saying, "He can't." All man has is signs, but they don't point to any true order, intepretations change and signs can point in many different directions at once. In other words, without some human standard, mankind is lost in translation.

Another interesting thing is how this movie is juxtaposed with its cinema rendition. While the ultimate meaning of the book is meaningless, the movie tends to say that love--even sinful love--conquers all the narrow-mindedness of the world, especially the religious world. This is shown in the love story between Adso and the peasant girl and the story of William and his love of rationality. Concerning Adso and the girl, the juxtaposition is most extreme. In the book, their carnal encounter is beautifully and tastefully narrated with direct quotations and allusions to the Song of Songs, whereas in the movie it borders on the pornographic. In the book, the peasant girl says to Adso that he is "young and handsome", in her vernacular, whereas in the movie all she can do is grunt like an ape. In the special features section of the DVD, Eco is interviewed and grants interpretive license to the movie makers (how delightfully postmodern), which in essence changes the book's content and message. The develops a sense of irony that Eco elaborates in the appendix to the book's revised version: there is no innocence, what we can say has already been said and we now know it.